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The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany announced Wednesday it has filed for chapter 11 protection, CBSAlbany.com reported. Under a chapter 11 status, this means all legal actions against the diocese will pause, including lawsuits involving St. Clare's pensioners. The diocese contends that the St. Clare's crisis was not the reason for filing under chapter 11. In a statement, Bishop Edward Scharfenberger pointed to the Child Victims Act resulting in large settlements, leaving insurance coffers depleted. The diocese said that the bankruptcy filing does not affect parishes and Catholic schools are separately incorporated under New York State’s Religious Corporations Law.

U.S. officials are trying to block key parts of the sale of bankrupt Voyager Digital Ltd. to Binance.US, the American arm of the world’s biggest crypto exchange, while the government appeals a judge’s approval of the deal, Bloomberg News reported. he government opposes any limits on its ability to punish anyone involved in the proposal and a related bankruptcy-exit plan that Bankruptcy Judge Michael E. Wiles approved last week, a Justice Department lawyer said in court yesterday. Other aspects of the deal could go forward, but not the legal protections included as part of Voyager’s chapter 11 plan, Assistant U.S. Attorney Larry Fogleman told Wiles. Wiles agreed to hold a hearing Wednesday to decide whether to block the plan’s exculpation provisions. The provisions, which are routine in corporate bankruptcy cases, protect people from being held personally liable for implementing a court-approved plan. Under its bankruptcy plan, Voyager has the option of selling itself to Binance.US or liquidating its assets and distributing the money to creditors. Judge Wiles gave the company permission to do either after four days of contentious bankruptcy hearings.

Diamond Sports Group, which provides local television broadcasts for nearly half of NBA, NHL and MLB games, filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection in Texas on yesterday, caught between expensive broadcast rights agreements and sports viewers' cord-cutting habits, Reuters reported. Diamond Sports, a Sinclair Broadcast Group subsidiary that operates the "Bally Sports" branded channels, listed assets and liabilities between $1 billion and $10 billion each in its chapter 11 petition. Diamond CEO David Preschlack said Tuesday that the Diamond "will continue broadcasting games and connecting fans across the country with the sports and teams they love" during its chapter 11 bankruptcy. Diamond said that it has $425 million in cash on hand, but it owes $9 billion to its lenders and is weighed down by long-term broadcast rights agreements that make less economic sense as customers move away from cable and towards online streaming options.

The closure of Signature Bank, a lender that counted a number of crypto companies as customers, marks another major setback for digital assets as the industry becomes ever more cut off from the banking system, Bloomberg News reported. The Treasury Department said Signature Bank was closed by New York state regulators Sunday and that depositors will have access to their money on Monday. The shutdown comes soon after the twin collapses of Silvergate Capital Corp. and Silicon Valley Bank. All the banks were, at least at one point, counted among the U.S.’s most crypto-friendly financial institutions. Signature had begun a pull back from digital assets in the wake of the blowup of the FTX exchange but still had $16.5 billion in crypto-related client deposits as of March 8. Signature and Silvergate also enabled fast payments between customers like hedge funds and exchanges, supporting digital-asset liquidity. Coinbase Global Inc., the U.S.’s biggest crypto exchange, said on Friday night that it had a $240 million balance at the bank. Paxos Global, which had previously partnered with Binance on the BUSD stablecoin, said it had $250 million at Signature. In the tweet, Paxos said it “holds private deposit insurance well in excess of our cash balance and FDIC per-account limits.”

The U.S. Department Justice has appealed a court order approving Voyager Digital's bankruptcy plan, creating a new hurdle for the crypto lender's plan to sell its assets and transfer its customers to Binance.US in a deal valued at $1.3 billion, Reuters reported. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and the Office of the U.S. Trustee, the Department of Justice's bankruptcy watchdog, filed a notice of appeal late Thursday in U.S. bankruptcy court in Manhattan. It did not detail why they were appealing. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Wiles, who is overseeing Voyager's chapter 11 bankruptcy process, had approved Voyager's restructuring plan, which is built around the acquisition by crypto exchange Binance.US, at a hearing on Tuesday after overruling objections from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and DOJ. Lawyers for the U.S. Trustee and U.S. Attorney's office spoke up at hearings to consider Voyager's bankruptcy plan to oppose provisions Voyager included to protect employees from potential legal claims resulting from actions taken during the bankruptcy. They argued that Wiles' order approving the plan was written too broadly, potentially preventing the government from bringing regulatory enforcement actions or criminal charges if misconduct was discovered later. Judge Wiles disagreed, saying that Voyager and its employees should not be penalized for carrying out a court-approved sale to Binance.US. If the DOJ or any government agency had evidence of misconduct specifically related to the bankruptcy, they should have presented it in court, Judge Wiles said.

An anticipated chapter 11 petition for Madera (Calif.) Community Hospital was filed in federal bankruptcy court on Friday, the The Business Journal reported. Saint Agnes Medical Center is the largest secured creditor, owed $15.4 million. New England Sheet Metal and one of its subcontractors together hold mechanic’s liens of about $1.1 million. About $2 million is owed in unpaid, accumulated time off for employees. All unsecured creditors are owed a total of about $9.1 million. Madera Community Hospital also filed a list of its 20 largest, unsecured creditors. The largest unsecured creditor is Citizens Business Bank, owed $1.1 million, followed by the State of California Emergency Medical Services Authority owed $776,412 and Arya Medical Group in Fresno owed $300,723. Assets include $5 million in cash, the hospital campus with an estimated value of $16 million to $60 million and incoming provider fees of $24 million. Along with the bankruptcy petition, Madera Community Bank also filed emergency motions to pay certain pre-petition wages, salaries, benefits and other compensation. According to the filing, the hospital has laid off more than 700 employees since Dec. 26, and currently has 31 full-time employees and four per diem employees managing the shuttered facility in administration and maintenance positions.

The Diocese under the Roman Catholic Bishop of Santa Rosa will be filing for bankruptcy Monday due to the large number of lawsuits filed against it from people who allege they were sexually abused, Bishop Robert Vasa said Friday, Patch.com reported. The lawsuits came in the wake of a three-year window declared by Gov. Gavin Newsom beginning in 2020 and ending on Dec. 31, 2022, that overruled the normal statute of limitations and opened the floodgates for litigation. According to the Catholic News Agency, Newsom's move allowed for suits to be brought that have gone back up to 75 years. For the Santa Rosa Diocese, the number of suits could be as many as 200, with 115 dating back more than 30 years. "These cases are too numerous to settle individually and so they have accumulated until the closing of the three-year window," Vasa said on Friday in his statement. "Now that the window is closed, we have received notice of at least 160 claims and we have information that perhaps more than 200 claims have been filed in total against the Diocese."

A U.S. regional sports broadcaster has failed to make a scheduled payment to Major League Baseball's Arizona Diamondbacks, a sign that bankruptcy is near for the company that provides local television broadcasts for nearly half of MLB, National Basketball Association and National Hockey League teams, Reuters reported. Diamond Sports, a Sinclair Broadcast Group subsidiary that operates the "Bally Sports" branded channels, said in a Friday statement that it missed a payment owed to the Diamondbacks but continues to pay broadcasting rights fees owed to other teams. The broadcaster had said last month that it missed a $140 million payment owed to its lenders, which triggered a 30-day grace period on its debt agreements. The company said at the time that it would use the 30 days to pursue restructuring talks with creditors and other key stakeholders. Sources familiar with the negotiations who asked remain anonymous to speak frankly expect those talks to lead to a chapter 11 bankruptcy filing this week.

Loyalty Ventures Inc. filed for bankruptcy Friday, blaming its financial problems largely on its 2021 spinoff from its parent company, a move that it said left the new business with substantial debt and limited cash flow, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The Dallas-based loyalty-programs operator filed for chapter 11 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston and said it plans to sell its customer-rewards programs including its Air Miles Reward Program, a loyalty program popular in Canada, and its Europe-based BrandLoyalty program for grocers and other retailers. Loyalty, which initiated a companion bankruptcy in Canada, listed nearly $1.6 billion in assets and nearly $2 billion in debt. The chapter 11 filing comes little more than a year after Loyalty was spun off from Bread Financial Holdings Inc., formerly known as Alliance Data Systems Corp. Revenue and earnings at Loyalty were in decline even before the spinoff and the company was saddled with substantial liabilities, it said in court filings. Loyalty owes more than $656 million on a credit facility it was required to take on as part of the 2021 spinoff, Chief Executive Charles Horn said in a sworn statement. Proceeds from the credit facility plus $100 million taken from Loyalty’s operating businesses were used to pay down Alliance Data debt, Mr. Horn said. Read more.

Binance’s American affiliate won court approval to take over thousands of customer accounts from bankrupt crypto platform Voyager Digital Ltd. despite warnings that the Binance.US exchange faces possible regulatory action, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Judge Michael Wiles of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York approved the companies’ deal, undeterred by the revelation last Friday that Securities and Exchange Commission staff have determined that Binance.US, the American affiliate of the world’s largest crypto exchange, is operating an unregistered securities exchange. The SEC staff’s view that Binance operates an unregistered exchange in the U.S. hasn’t been affirmed by the agency’s commissioners but indicates the SEC could take enforcement action. Judge Wiles on Tuesday said he couldn’t delay the deal between Voyager and Binance.US simply because the SEC is warning about possible future enforcement, especially since the agency didn’t present any evidence the companies could rebut. “The SEC didn’t say why they say Binance.US is operating as a securities broker. If we were to try to address the issue we’d have to guess,” Judge Wiles said in his ruling. The judge’s ruling clears the way for Voyager to transfer roughly $1 billion in cryptocurrency it holds to Binance.US, where customers would receive new accounts to access some of the assets that have been frozen since Voyager filed for chapter 11 last year. In court hearings that began last week, Judge Wiles considered Voyager’s plan to sell its customer accounts to Binance.US, wind up the bankruptcy case and distribute what remains of the business to its customers. U.S. state and federal regulators have voiced doubts about the viability of the proposed deal, citing risks from pending regulatory investigations of Binance.US.